Teachers should be allowed to lead Scotland’s education system

Sir, – Ian Wallace, in his desperate attempts through your column, believes a lot of fake or carefully adjusted news which he then spouts as true to support his desire for Scotland to become bankrupt .... sorry, that’s what my autocorrect does when I type “independent”!

His statement that Scotland has an excellent education system has to be questioned, however. I’m a retired teacher, so don’t speak fake news, but true, unpolitically-motivated facts about education past and present. I’d like to know what involvement Mr Wallace has had in education after he left university. If the answer is none, then his views are based solely on the heavily biased figures released by successive Scottish governments since the ’90s.

It’s important to recognise at this point that the classroom teacher has no blame for these figures. As pawns in the game, they have to do as they are told and have little say in policy. This subject is far too big to even try to cover in a letter, so I apologise for being selective. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Scottish education was the best in Britain.

This is based on genuine figures from results based on the now-pilloried examination system which measured what pupils knew and what they understood. Then, after the dreadful decision to save money by introducing comprehensivisation, governments wanted figures to show it was working.

As it was inconceivable that they could show anything in a negative light, the government took total control over what these figures showed and how they were achieved. The government at this point also introduced the relative rating system so they could create figures to compare department with department and even teacher with teacher. It was a heavily flawed weapon

which caused great rifts within schools. This was the start of the degradation.

From then on, results mysteriously started on an annual rise. The number of pupils “passing” at C grade climbed annually until they topped 98%! This delighted politicians, headmasters and parents. Teachers themselves were more aware of the truth, but couldn’t speak out. Instead of the examination board

setting exams with a fair pass mark for each grade, they were told how many pupils had to pass in order to achieve the government figures desired that year. To achieve that, the pass mark threshold was reduced. Some years, a mark of less than 35% would be awarded a C pass.

The result of this has led to figures which on the surface look excellent but are unattainable in reality.

These are what Mr Wallace believes. The truth is that education standards at the mass lower and middle levels have fallen year by year with universities forced into a “bums on seats” policy so they can attract government funding. Pupils are entering tertiary education who would not have been considered in the past. This keeps unemployment figures down at the expense of students who will come out with paper qualifications that don’t impress employers.

As an example, the last new teacher to join my staff (I was a head of department) had an honours degree and was on paper better qualified than the rest of my excellent staff. It soon became clear that this teacher had many weaknesses and wouldn’t have been able to pass the entrance exam I sat to enter Edinburgh University.

As for the infamous Curriculum for Excellence, very few teachers will use the word “successful” to describe it. It narrowed down subject choice and put the survival of certain departments at risk.

It may be uncomfortable to believe, but statistics can be used to prove anything the statistician (spin doctor, election agent, Cabinet minister) is tasked with. You can fool some of the people some of the time.

As a genuine education system which actually cares for children and their successful future, ours is so broken it may never get back to its great past until it is allowed to be run by teachers without political interference.

That won’t happen unless parents take the plank from their eyes and force the change, starting at primary school.

That was the tip of the iceberg, so it’s better I stop now.

One letter writer is asking for educational change.